“Just as the personalization of the aspects of Essence leads to the synthesis of all such personalized aspects, the personalization of the various dimensions— the objective dimensions of Essence and ...”
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"First, I wanted to say I am quite heartened and happy with the ongoing discussions and conversations that this contemplation invited. I am so glad that many saw the value of such inquiry, that we do not have to protect our particular spiritual real estate, but be generous and open to dialogue with others who hold different points of view. I wanted to point to the preciousness of each teaching, but wanted to do it while honoring their uniqueness and particular contribution to mankind’s learning of the spiritual way of Being." Continue Reading »

The only knowledge we have of a world is our experience. What is the nature of experience, and how does it happen? What are the means through which the nature of experience and how it happens may be discovered?

In this conversation with Rupert Spira and A. H. Almaas we will explore the nature and dynamic of experience, and their two distinct approaches to that inquiry.

Excerpts About Work

So “the Work” means any way, or school, or method, which recognizes the fact of suffering and the cause of unnecessary suffering, and works to lead a person back to his true nature and thus eliminate the unnecessary suffering which is caused by the split in us. The purpose of the Work, however, is not primarily to eliminate suffering. The desire to return to one’s true nature is an innate impulse, which is there in the presence or even in the absence of suffering. The more we are in touch with ourselves, the more we feel this innate desire to know and to be who we really are. Diamond Heart Book I, p. 36 • discuss »

However, when you put forth the effort to be present, to be aware, to be essentially in action, the awareness becomes the understanding part, and the Presence, the Being part of action. You will encounter difficulties and barriers to being present and aware in action. Learning how to deal with these barriers is the actual Work. From this come observations and issues that you might have to work on for some time afterwards. Overcoming these barriers, through continual practice of Presence and understanding, will integrate your realization into action. Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 82 • discuss »

The Work is nothing more than being present in your experience in an undefended way. When you are present in your experience without defenses, then there is contact between this beingness or Presence and whatever happens in internal or external experience. When this contact happens, there is a process of transformation which we call metabolism or absorption. This process of transformation causes you to get bigger or more expanded. That is how you grow up. Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 31 • discuss »

Our work can be seen as freeing our capacity to know. When we become more open and curious about knowledge, we come upon even more basic knowledge. Our experience of our essential nature becomes a kind of knowledge that is more intimate and precise than we have been used to. This opens us up to realms of knowledge we had not imagined existed. Diamond Heart Book III, p. 147 • discuss »

The Work is needed. It is needed to expose many things until a certain time comes when the Work becomes a barrier; when you see that the Work, not just this work, but any work you do on yourself, just gets in the way. The moment you try to do something to work on yourself, you are separating from yourself. But you have to get to the point where you understand this completely before you can let go of trying. When you are convinced of the futility of what you are trying to do on all levels, then you let go. This will mean ultimate surrender. Before this happens, you're going to try, and you might as well try that within the perspective of the Work. Diamond Heart Book III, p. 57 • discuss »

As you see, this work is not a matter of being better or worse, more or less. It is not a matter of getting your Essence, or of achieving enlightenment or freedom. All these are ultimately concepts. The real truth is there, existing as it is, without your mind saying what is good or bad. It is being present with what is. Any rejection of what is there is suffering, even if that rejection is predicated on the hope of reaching God or freedom or enlightenment. The enlightenment or freedom will come as a result of doing this work, but that is not the issue. The issue is not enlightenment. The issue is not freedom. The issue is "what is." Diamond Heart Book II, p. 75 • discuss »

You cannot hold on to something unless you don't completely understand it. Because of this we can say that the search, or the work, is a process of continual disappointment. You find something, and then you realize you haven't found anything. You get something, and then you realize you haven’t gotten anything. Whatever we find is not it, whatever we have is not it, whatever we get is not it, and whatever we love is not it. As long as the subject remains separate from the object it’s not it. Diamond Heart Book V, p. 39 • discuss »

When people begin any path of work, they carry with them their ton of cabbage. This refers to all of their ideas about the world and their expectations that the path will teach them how to be happy in the world they know. They want to be given recipes for preparing tastier cabbage. But real work schools try to get rid of your ton of cabbage altogether, all your ideas and your beliefs about who you are and what reality is. You drop not only your ton of cabbage, but also you drop your clothes, shed your skin, and lose your mind. So the ton of cabbage includes the one who carries it.Diamond Heart Book V, p. 187 • discuss »

The Work is for someone who wants to live a life that’s not vacuous, that’s not empty, that’s not part of the common tide. We don’t do the Work to be special or better than other people, but because we want to be genuine, because we want to be real, because we feel a deep longing for living a genuine life. If we are truly pulled toward living a real life, then even if we suffer and feel miserable for a long time, we wouldn’t want to exchange our life for an easier one because what we value most is the truth. To live a genuine life we have to dedicate ourselves to the truth; we have to make many sacrifices.Diamond Heart Book V, p. 228 • discuss »

So the joy in the Work is a celebration of the truth. It’s not a celebration of something superficial or transitory or fake. When I'm working with someone, I don’t necessarily feel joy about their successes in life. Joy comes when I see the personbeing truthful, being sincere with himself. Joy comes when I see the person turning toward the truth, regardless of how painful it is, regardless of how much he is suffering. Seeing the person suffering makes me feel compassion, but what brings me joy is when I see the person confronting the truth and wanting to live according to it. That's what I enjoy seeing in people. Diamond Heart Book V, p. 238 • discuss »

So the work we do here has to do with the activation, development, and evolution of the soul, so that it in turn can actualize the various realms of knowledge. The various spiritual techniques we employ are not oriented only toward the experience of Essence or God. Most spiritual techniques are primarily oriented toward a certain education that corresponds with the development of the organ of evolution. That education is a matter of learning how to approach experience. So, the spiritual education, which is a central part of our work, is not a matter of only having experience, but learning how to relate to and understand the experience. How we approach our experience is what will bring resolution, what will bring actual fulfillment, what will bring the awakening, what will bring the reduction of suffering. The generation of new experiences, no matter how sublime, will not by itself resolve anything. What matters is the attitude with which we approach our experience.
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 334 • discuss »

The understanding that we glean from the illumination of Total Being is somewhat different from the standard or classical model of mysticism, which emphasizes the various experiences of nonduality—the oneness of reality or the unity of Being. As we work with the view of totality and the understanding of Total Being, we see that reality includes these experiences, sees their place, and expands beyond them. The view of totality reveals that these are the ways, the stations, the states, and the steps that open up reality so that it is free to manifest itself in whatever way it wants to. Following these steps to nowhere in particular opens up the dynamism of Being so that Being can simply and spontaneously evolve. Not being able to experience and realize these states implies that we have issues—obstructions, delusions, identifications, fixed views and attitudes, structures, images, object relations—that will constrain the freedom of Living Being, which is, after all, our freedom. Because of this, the work we do has, in some sense, two sides. One side is the discovery of true nature in the various ways it manifests, including the discovery of the laws of how experience happens and the laws of mind or consciousness. The other side of our work is seeing, recognizing, and learning how to work with the structures and the issues. As we are liberated from these constraints, the freedom of reality to keep manifesting its possibilities and its potential is enhanced. This dynamic manifestation and evolution of reality is our manifestation and our evolution. So the process of realizing true nature and the process of becoming free from the delusions, the structures, and the issues go hand in hand. They are not two separate processes.

The work we do in this school is not metaphysics, philosophy, psychology, religion, or science. Although it’s none of those things, the Diamond Approach is not disconnected from any one of them. This work is a certain kind of science; it includes a definite body of knowledge and employs a specific methodology. If we could give this science any name, it would be the science of what a human being can be. And the actualization of what a human being can be is useful to many other fields, whether science, philosophy, religion, metaphysics, medicine, or healing. The science of what a human being can be applies a certain kind of knowledge that I call the Diamond Knowledge. By knowledge I don’t simply mean information. Although it includes information, knowledge is primarily the direct experience of the content of reality and the methods necessary to actualize that truth. At the present time, the Diamond Approach consists of three main areas of experiential knowledge: the knowledge of the soul, which includes the knowledge of the ego, and the knowledge of the heart and spirit; the knowledge of Essence, which includes the knowledge of states, transformation, and realization; and the knowledge of God, sometimes called the knowledge of objective reality. Each area of knowledge is an immense field, and all three are interrelated.

Doing the Work for yourself blocks your unfoldment. Doing the Work in order to become a clearer and clearer window for the universe is selfless; then you do the Work out of humility, out of love, and out of putting your self (your ego) aside. In this case, your unfoldment will happen more easily and spontaneously. It is not a matter of thinking that you, as a separate individual, are going to help God in this way; that is just a subtler way of expressing your sense of separateness. It is a matter of recognizing your true position relative to God, your true function as a human being, your true connection to the universe—which is being a cell in its body. Reorienting your approach to the Work does not mean you should try to control your motivation (which is impossible anyway), or judge yourself when you see that you are being self-centered. Rather, it means that every time you recognize yourself operating from selfish motivations, you try to identify the barrier that is interfering with seeing things objectively.